Afghanistan: The Never-Ending War

Yesterday morning, another suicide attack hit Kabul. The explosion, that caused the death of at least 7 people according to the Afghan Ministry of Internal Affairs, took place by the entrance of a building where a political rally was being held in support of regional leader Atta Mohammad Noor, Governor of the Balkh province.

“We received 20 patients straight away at our Surgical Centre, a couple of kilometres away from the site of the explosion. Three of them were dead on arrival, while three others have been hospitalised and are in a critical condition. Among the three dead patients was a child. We don’t know his identity, no one came to look for him. He must have been around 10”, says Giorgia Novello, Medical Coordinator in Kabul.

“There was a storm in Kabul this morning, it was hailing very loudly, but despite the fact that winter came, the situation doesn’t change much in Afghanistan. This year, on average, 9 war victims were hospitalised every day in our hospital in Kabul. We are literally witnessing a daily war”, continues Giorgia.

In Afghanistan, over 70,000 civilians have been killed or wounded in the previous 8 years of war. During the first nine months of 2017, 8,019 civilian casualties were recorded. 1 in every 3 is a child (source: UNAMA).

Since December 1999, EMERGENCY has treated over 5,583,000 people in Afghanistan.